History of Nagpur

The history of Nagpur, in central India, spans over 5,000 years, including the Kingdom of Nagpur in the 18th and 19th century. Human existence around present-day Nagpur city (in Maharashtra, India) can be traced back 3,000 years to the 8th century BC. Menhir burial sites at Drugdhamna (near Mhada colony) indicate megalithic culture existed around Nagpur and is still followed in present times.

The first a reference to the name "Nagpur" is found in a 10th-century copper-plate inscription discovered at Devali in the neighbouring Wardha district. The inscription is a record of grant of a village situated in the visaya (district) of Nagpura-Nandivardhana during time of Rastrakuta king Krsna III in the Saka year 862 (940 CE). Inscription found at Ramtek show that during the 12th century AD Nagpur and its surrounding regions formed the part of the thickly wooded country called Jhadimandala under Yadavas of Devagiri. However, tradition ascribes the founding of Nagpur to Bakht Buland, a prince of the Gond kingdom of Deogarh in the Chhindwara district.

In 1743, the Maratha leader Raghoji Bhonsale of Vidarbha established himself at Nagpur, after conquering the territories of Deogarh, Chanda and Chhattisgarh by 1751. After Raghoji's death in 1755, his son and successor Janoji was forced to acknowledge the effective supremacy of the Maratha Peshwa of Pune in 1769. Regardless, the Nagpur state continued to grow. Janoji's successor Mudhoji I Bhonsale (d. 1788) came to power in 1785 and bought Mandla and the upper Narmada valley from the Peshwa between 1796 and 1798, after which Raghoji II Bhonsale (d. 1816) acquired Hoshangabad, the larger part of Saugor and Damoh. Under Raghoji II, Nagpur covered what is now the east of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

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